I’m transitioning a community to Discourse, and I have a list of email addresses. I’d like to create accounts for each user, so I can send them emails through the forums, but don’t intend for them to be able to post yet. I’m trying to (at first) just use Discourse as a platform to send out announcements.
Can I import a list of email addresses without sending invites to each person?
If you are planning to create accounts without signing up or inviting, then here is a method you can try in your console.
rails c
u = User.create!(username: "name", email: "name@email.com", password: "password")
u.approve(Discourse.system_user, false) # if manual approvals are required
u.activate
Just make sure that You have a consent from these users. Also, They can only really receive the Discourse Summary emails as discourse doesn’t have any built-in newsletter or mailer functionality beyond that.
You could force all users to watch a category.
You can … but you will also “force” these users to … well, hate you for spamming them. 
Don’t forget the default time period for users to be able to change their username is 3 days. Some users may not want their username to be the prefix of their email. The setting is in admin/site_setting/category/users. You may want to increase the number of days to allow them to log in and make any changes.
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